Juliet Stevenson has one of the most pleasing voices and Monica Ali's second novel provides the perfect platform for her gifts. Woven into the fabric of the village of Mamarrosa in Portugal are characters that blend into each other's lives: among them is Stanton, the strange English writer with the full lips who befriends and then beds a mother and daughter from a dysfunctional cockney family. Then there's Teresa, who dreams of a life in London but is trapped by the small-town mentality of her friends and family. Stevenson creeps into their characters. Within their voices, we hear echoes of our own insecurities and failures. The abridgement sacrifices atmosphere to maintain character but even that cannot detract from the beauty of this reading.